108 .: . '\ "="':';" ".:"........ $: '" , .... JA <',,' '-R ?f " , .. ,t 4, :_ .'<ð" tr::' J( to [t ,< "'*'" ,...,. , , ',' ,j: $ . t ,"'" __ ., ., ;, S".,. '1>' '- Give humanitarian aid. Help prevent a Gulf war. Multitudes of Asian workers are caught by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and some continue to flee. Up to 500 a day still arrive in Jordan desti- tute, needing shelter, food, water, medical care and repatriation. The American Friends Service Com- mittee (AFSC), a Quaker agency, contributes to the Queen Alia Jordan Social Welfare Fund feeding program for Asian evacuees at the Andulus transit camp near Amman. AFSe also coordinates with UN and local voluntary agencies to meet the needs of evacuees along the Jordan/Iraq border. Over 500,000 Asians and perhaps one-million Egyptians are still in Kuwait and Iraq and suffer as citi- zens of nations supporting UN sanc- tions. The steady stream of refugees may again reach flood level. Since our 1917 founding, AFSC has picked up the pieces after war and has worked hard to prevent war We're trying to prevent this one by rallying American support for a nonviolent, diplomatic solu- tion. The cold war is past, and we can now settle international disputes without resort to mass killling. War is not inevitable and we can't let the current crisis slip into all-out conflict with untold human suffer- ing. At the same time, we have to provide food and drink, shelter and medical care to those who are already victims. Please support AFSC's humanitarian aid and its work to prevent further suffering. . American Friends Service Committee 1501 Cherry Street Philadelphia, PA 19102 My gift for humanitarian aid and AFSe work to prevent a Gulf war: D $35 D $50 D $75 D $100 Other_ Name Address City /State/Zip 199NA Photo by Kevin Barry McKiernan hysteria, had "precise social and eco- nomic roots." Pentheus, intent on im- posing conformity, is Henze's villain, and Dionysus is a savior: The basic conflict in "The Bassarids" is between social repression and sexualliber- ation: the liberation of the individual. It shows people as individuals breaking out of a socia] context, as a road to freedom, as the intoxicating liberation of people who suddenly discover themselves, who release the Dionysus wIthin themselves. Henze said that in 1975, before a Frankfurt production; Auden would have been distressed. Where composer and poets agree is that Pentheus' at- tempt to repress his instinctual nature leads to his destruction. "The Bas- sarids" is not schematic, and is not an explanation or ( despite such lines as the chorus's "We heard nothing . We saw nothing . We took no part in her law- less frenzy") a merely topical applica- tion of "The Bacchae" but a version of that psychologically and socially pene- trating tragedy fashioned for musical enactment. The long line of the sym- phony shows Pentheus' music in con- flict with and finally overcome by the music of Dionysus. Kenneth Riegel, the Carnegie Dio- nysus, took a critical, Audenesque view of the god. He was very sure, but he sang the glittering, seductive music in tight, unattractive tones and in an odd- ly chirpy, charmless manner. (In Salz- burg, Loren Driscoll was a more per- suasive seducer.) Vernon Hartman made a sound, sturdy Pentheus. Anja Silja's Agave reached tragic heights. Celina Lindsley (Autonoe), Ortrun Wenkel (Beroe), Michael Burt (Cad- mus), Monte Pederson (Captain of the Guard), and Jon Garrison (Tiresias) were all good. The Cleveland Orches- tra Chorus was satisfactory; the orches- tra was superb. Mr. Ðohnanyi led an inspired performance. The rococo comic intermezzo-Pentheus' fevered fantasy of his mother and his aunt vying, amid giggles, for the favors of a handsome guardsman-was omitted, at the composer's suggestion, and that brought the duration to under two hours. In 1966, I felt that the inter- mezzo was perhaps a shade too long, but this time I missed it. T HE Met's new "Ballo in Maschera"-the first new pro- duction of the season-is a disgusting exhibition. Although the perpetuation of grand opera, the most expensive but potentially the most potent of all art NOVEMBER 12, 1990 forms, may be socially hard to justify even at the best of times, strong argu- ments for its continued existence can be made. This "Ballo," however, is an obscenity-ostentatiously costly, to anti -artistic effect. An opera about the responsibilities attached to high public office, conflicts between personal incli- nation and public duty, the smart of betrayal by those most trusted, and the vanity of donning masks to evade reali- ty (in each act, disguised personages are unmasked) has been reduced to a CIrcus. The kindest judgment on Piero Faggioni, who was engaged to direct, design, and light the show, would be to assume that he meant to mock and satirize the opera in question, the whole idea of opera, the Met, and a Met audience uncaring about music and easily pleased. If this was his intention, it was furthered by various jokes: a mountainous Riccardo waddled on during his animated entrance music; Oscar's headgear kept falling off; Amelia entered Ulrica's den to emote shadowed beneath an enormous Gains- borough hat; Renato cried "Siam soli" to a Sam and Tom accompanied by a posse of retainers; Riccardo sang his intimate last-act monologue to the ears of eight flunkies; Oscar delivered his invitation to the ball and his second aria surrounded by capering attendants. The scenes were elaborately stepped, and the audience was invited to wonder whether Luciano Pavarotti, while the rest of the cast ranged freely, would ever quit the flat central landing along which he had entered. (Once or twice he did venture a single step.) The prelude became the accompaniment to a commedia-dell'arte ballet, with Pierrots and conspiratorial Pantaloons mopping and mowing. During the final duet, another such ballet was promi- nently enacted on a bridge above Ame- lia and Riccardo: a Pantaloon stabbed a Pierrot in Columbine's embrace while below them-almost unnoticed- Renato assassinated Riccardo. In the closing tableaux, Riccardo bestowed a dying kiss upon Oscar where Verdi calls for a poignant visual trio of Ric- cardo, Amelia, and Renato: the ruler who has heeded duty's call too late; a woman who, like Elizabeth in "Don Carlos," strives to live purely and hon- estly though her heart is rent; and a good man impetuously prompted into a criminal act. F or this brief final scene, the masked